


Follow Shot

by Nice_Valkyrie



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Pool & Billiards, Trust, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nice_Valkyrie/pseuds/Nice_Valkyrie
Summary: Roy was beginning to wonder if there was anything Riza couldn't shoot.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 17
Kudos: 81





	Follow Shot

**Author's Note:**

> _**follow shot** : a shot in which the cue ball is struck above center to impart topspin, causing the cue ball to roll forward, after impact, more than it would otherwise._
> 
> Just a short scene for fun.

Riza sank the last shot effortlessly, and Roy whistled in resentful admiration. 

“That makes three,” said Riza, crisp as the bill she folded into her pocket. “We can quit any time you’d like, sir,” she added, in a tone that made it clear how she would view the choice.

“You know, I actually thought I was holding my own at first,” Roy complained. “Should I feel swindled?”

Riza smiled thinly. “You’re the one who has me working on a weekend, sir.” 

This late on a Sunday—or early on a Monday, depending on how one wanted to look at it—the back room of Clarey’s bar was deserted. Only the hazy yellow lamps overhead and the two other pool tables kept them company. Their informant still hadn’t shown. At this point, Roy was skeptical they ever would.

He found he wasn’t too distraught. He knew he could find other leads. In that arena, at least, he was confident in his abilities.

Pool was another story; but that, too, was less distressing to Roy than one might have assumed. Cue sticks had always felt more than a little awkward to wield, even if he considered himself a half-decent player. By contrast, the lieutenant had made no indication of her decency, and she'd turned out to be all confidence and grace. There was a pleasure in seeing sport done right, and Riza had skill in spades.

At the same time, Roy wasn’t keen on the prospect of losing more money.

“I should have known,” he said, strolling around the far end of the table. “Having seen you with a rifle, it figures you’d be excellent with anything else a person can shoot.”

“I’m mediocre with a bow and arrow, sir.”

“To be honest, Lieutenant, that’s not much consolation at the moment.”

Riza shrugged and rested the cue stick against her shoulder. “I played when I was younger.” She curled her fingers around its narrow circumference. “We kept the action necessarily more surreptitious, but for a while there, I didn't do so bad.” 

Roy recalled Riza’s graduation photo, once pointed out in the library to her embarrassment. Her blonde hair had been brutally cropped, her cheeks bony and freckled, and he chuckled to himself at the mental image of her sidling up to a table of cocky military boys. “Oh, I bet you were a terror in the academy.”

“I imagine I could have won the shirts off my fellows’ backs. Or at least enough money to buy them over again.”

“Yes, well,” said Roy hastily, “what do you say we change things up? Do you know any trick shots?”

Riza's expression remained unchanged, but Roy could have sworn he saw a twinkle of mirth in her eyes. “I wouldn’t call it a trick, but I’m fairly handy with a jump shot.”

“Show me.” 

Riza scooped out two balls, the four and the five, and arranged them on the cloth. Of course, while her features were softer now, she was no less intimidating. The light in here did strange things to her hair, made it brassier, somehow; gave it more layers of color, and burnished it until it shone. And it looked almost molten as she slid down along her stick, eyes fixed on her target, and fired without hesitation. The cue ball hopped over the five and knocked the four straight into the pocket. 

Roy swallowed the water that had filled his mouth without his noticing.

"Excellent work, Lieutenant," he said.

It was an inane comment, born from habit rather than genuine reaction. But Riza seemed to appreciate it anyway. 

"I haven't done that since I was fifteen," she admitted. 

Roy smiled to himself. When Riza was pleased with herself, it was usually subtle, and often concealed beneath a layer of dry wit. To have offered up such information, with an obvious edge of pride, she must have been in a pleasant mood indeed.

Then Roy paused. Riza had celebrated that birthday just a month before he arrived at the Hawkeye house. She’d been close-mouthed about her private life during the tenure of his apprenticeship, but he would have expected to run into her at Donnelly's or the Harvestman at some point. Or, given the talent on display, heard her name, undoubtedly with a warning attached.

Riza caught the thread of his thoughts immediately. “I didn't play at the bars,” she said, and then she went abruptly silent. 

Roy watched as she replaced the chalk on the edge of the table, fastidiously arranging it against the grain of the wood. Yes, Riza kept her feelings close to her chest and heavily cloaked—but Roy knew her too well to be fooled by her disguises.

So he made no reply, only leaned forward and flattened his hand on the table in front of the three ball. "Can you jump this?"

The tiny lines of tension in Riza's face cleared. She raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure, sir?”

“What? Pool’s not exactly a dangerous game.”

"A hard shot could do quite a bit of damage."

The resin-glazed balls were heavy, and the _clacks_ when they slammed into each other were sometimes loud enough to echo. But it was the knowing flatness in Riza's voice that made the back of Roy's neck prickle. “Then it's a good thing I'm certain you won’t miss.” 

Riza rolled the cue ball up beside Roy’s thumb, examining the setup. "There was a man who would bring me to his estate, to play at his private table," she said quietly. After a moment, she added, "This one's for the corner."

And sure enough, the ball cleared Roy’s hand by and sent the three straight into the far pocket.

Roy was strangely breathless. He’d felt the air change as the ball leapt over his hand, the whisper of what might have been if it had fallen just closer. If his lieutenant wasn’t such a faithful shot.

“Do you want to keep going?” he asked.

Riza met his gaze steadily. “I'm surprised you need to ask, sir.”

Roy rolled two more balls onto the cloth and put his hand between them. “Again. Jump one and my hand.”

Riza bent over and tested her shot. "I think he found me entertaining," she said. As Roy watched, the cue stick approached, retreated, and advanced again with the wary fluidity of a bird investigating a potential meal. "He didn't mind losing to me. Even in front of his friends. You'll have to move, sir.”

“What?”

Riza tapped the cloth beside Roy’s little finger with the cue stick. “There’s not enough room on this side.”

“Oh, I see.” Roy curled his little and ring fingers beneath his palm, and Riza nodded. 

“Sometimes I thought that was all he wanted."

The _smack_ of stick-on-resin, the _thunk_ of resin-on-cloth, and the cue ball was backspinning just where Roy’s fingers had been, the deuce landing in the corner pocket with a soft _clack_.

"Other times," Riza went on, "he seemed happiest when it was just the two of us."

The one ball lay like a golden magnet, gazing back at them. Roy pressed both hands into the cloth on either side of it, then moved them halfway down the length of the table.

“Between them," he said. "From the other side, there."

Riza slid into position with ease. She pulled the cue stick back and fired the one ball through the gate of Roy's hands, slamming it directly into the far pocket.

"You know, this wouldn't be a bad spot to find ourselves defending, sir." Her tone was bracingly casual, as though the thought had just occurred to her. "Not that we'll have cause to demonstrate, but a proper swing with a cue stick can break a bone. Or two.”

“Lieutenant—” Roy began, and then he realized he didn’t know how the sentence would end.

"Let me try another," said Riza brusquely. "The same setup, only I'll bank it off the side."

She rolled the one and cue balls across the table. This time, instead of setting them up deliberately, she let them come to rest on their own. Then she prowled the perimeter, scouting her position. A weak or amateur eye might have called her abilities instinctive. But to Roy, it was obvious that Riza had been well-trained in the arts of angles and velocity. Anyone with half a brain should have recognized her skill.

Riza leaned over the table, directly under the light. It sharpened her face to harshness and hunger and turned her eyes dark.

"Hold still, sir."

As Roy watched, fingertips tingling, he thought he finally registered the uncomfortable feeling in his chest as vulnerability. How strange. He wasn't trapped in anything resembling an exposed position, and more to the point, he didn't have anything to fear. So perhaps he should have called the feeling exhilaration—the thrill of letting oneself fall backwards into another's arms—

The cue ball rocketed into the one with a glassy _crack_ and shot it through the dead center of the space between Roy's wrists. Half a second later, it landed in the pocket with a small, answering _click_.

Air rushed back in to fill the sudden emptiness. Roy's heart was hammering. Riza stayed bent over, eyes shadowed.

“Yes, I expect you could kill someone with a proper shot,” she said. "You'd only need to convince them to lay their head on the table first.”


End file.
